Phoenix Rising, Phoenix Falling

The boy did not look good.  That was an alarming shock.

It’d been a shock to see Harry curled in a tight, shaking ball in his cell, with a spill of vomit on the floor and blue lips.  He’d noticed with some surprise that his cheek had retreated into his face, that the shoulders that shuddered violently with chills had sharp angles and the legs that were pulled into his chest were stick thin.  He had felt an indescribable, private kind of panic when he’d found him like that, convinced for a minute that the boy was dying of some unknown poison, some curse that had gotten around the wards in his cell.  

It had not been a relief to know that it was a fever that was killing one of his horcruxes.  In the orphanage he’d grown up in, children had died of fevers.  He’d never gotten sick from them himself, but the Spanish flu and influenza had killed other orphans in waves of twos and threes every winter.  That’d been before muggles had known much about vaccination and medicine.  He remembered vividly the sickly sweet way they’d smelled.  The vomiting and coughing.  The way they caved in on themselves, burning on the inside before they died.

Harry Potter looked like one of those orphans now: drawn and miserable and sick.

And thin.

He’d been withholding food as a means of punishing him and keeping him weak.  He’d specified to the house elves exactly how much the boy was to have and what was to be in it.  He thought he’d use food to reward good behavior and punish bad.  

Given what he knew of the boy’s upbringing and his aunt’s withholding of food, he thought that might be a good strategy to take, but he regretted it now.  He’d been too rough on the boy off the bat, fuelled by a genuine hatred for the boy and a desire to get rid of his defiance, even though in the long term it was not his intention to overly abuse him.  He wanted him cowed and docile and obedient, but in the end, the prophecy made clear his victory depended on Harry’s survival.

He should have made sure the boy was in good health before he’d abused him.

His hair was overgrown and falling into his eyes and his body was coated with a layer of oil, dirt and blood.  When they’d held him down to remove the dirty shoe bound to his foot, he’d fought back like an animal caught in a trap.

Harry was sleeping with his head on his knees and his arms forming a protective circle around his legs.  His face in profile was just visible to the Dark Lord.  Without baby fat on his cheeks and large round glasses on his nose, it was easier to see the kind of man he was growing into.  His cheekbones were high and narrow like his father’s had been, but there was something more of his mother in him than just his eyes, he had her slightly upturned nose.  His hair had grown out past his chin, dark and thick, and had a slight curl to it.  His mouth was slightly open.

His breath came in and out evenly, and occasionally his brow twitched.

The skull and snake tattoo on his forearm tightened and twitched.  Every day a summons came for him.  It wasn’t easy managing the affairs of the Ministry of Magic, the capture of his enemies, and the purging of mudbloods.  Everyone always wanted something from him.  There was always something more that he wanted.  The more he conquered the less satisfied he was with the results he saw.

“Lucius,” he drew the pale shadow of a man closer.  Unreliable as he was to complete complex tasks, he knew Lucius was too much of a coward to ever truly defy him, and there was some use in that.  “Go to the Ministry and attend to Yaxley's needs.  I don’t want to be disturbed unless you’ve captured one of the traitors.”  Most likely, what Yaxley wanted was a reassurance of his Lord’s approval, some execution of a criminal or a new law.  “Report back to me.”

He didn’t want to leave with Harry still so vulnerable.  He only had three segments of his soul left and he could not honestly say he cared that much about what his death eaters did, so long as they obeyed him when he asserted his decrees.  Lucius bowed and backed away.

Harry jerked up dramatically, splashing water everywhere.  His head had slipped off his knees and fallen into the water for a second.  He was wide eyed and disoriented, looking around wildly.  He went to reach for glasses that weren’t there.

“Good, you’re awake,” Voldemort said.  “It’s time for another dose of medicine.”

Harry scowled immediately.  He could feel his continuing confliction about taking the medicine and suicide, if it wasn’t written clearly enough on his face.  Harry’s thoughts were generally direct and powerful, as though they were spoken out loud.  For years, he’d monitored Harry’s emotions and experiences from afar, almost as soon as he realized a connection existed between them.  

Most of what he learned about Harry’s life was absolutely useless.  Hogwarts kept his nose to the grindstone with studying, and then there were his friends, his role on the Quidditch team, studying some more, and occasionally lustful thoughts about girls.  Absolutely what one would expect of a dedicated student at Hogwarts.  His personality was strong but mostly reactive to his surroundings, his intentions good, and his mind sharp but not suited to subterfuge and manipulation.  

He had no talent for occlumency.  For someone like Voldemort who specialized in reading other people, every one of Harry’s emotions radiated out like he’d shouted them.  

He was sulking now, thinking about how to avoid swallowing the medicine, how to worsen his own fever, how to use the situation to his advantage to either attack the Dark Lord or make a daring escape.  Predictable.  Nagini picked up on his mood and raised her head from where she was curled up by his feet to sniff the air and let out a soft hiss.

When Ysvley came over with a spoonful of medicine, Harry reached out to take it with a stubborn look on his face, not wanting to be treated like a child by being spoon fed.  Once he had it, he hesitated.  “Take it.”  Voldemort commanded.  “And swallow it.”

Harry looked over with calculation in his eyes.  Voldemort was just planning to bring Molly Weasley into Malfoy manor again when he took the spoonful and did as he was told.

Voldemort smiled, and beckoned Narcissa over.  “Gather some of Draco’s clothes for Harry to wear.  They should be around the same size, if slightly baggy.”  She bowed and Harry wrinkled his nose in distaste.  He addressed the healer.  “How soon should we start increasing Harry’s portion size?”

“Well…”

“I’m not hungry.”  Harry said firmly.  “If I eat now, I’ll just throw it up.”

“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, boy.  There must be some kind of anti-nausea potion you can brew?  If it doesn’t interfere with the potions components, I want him to gain weight as soon as possible.”

“I think a simple broth would be easy enough on his stomach without disagreeing with the components of the Boxt-Pattley potion.  He can have that right away, and a nutrition supplement potion in the early hours of the morning before he has another dose of the Boxt-Pattley.  The anti-inflammatory substances of ground henbane root and unicorn’s horn can be harmful on the stomach, so I’d like to take a measured approach.”   

Narcissa arrived back in the room with a folded pair of clothing, which she set gracefully on the floor as she bowed to the Dark Lord.  Harry was watching her and the clothes warily.  He could feel dread and embarrassment leak through their connection, if the slight flush creeping up his neck wasn’t enough.  Voldemort smiled slightly.  

He summoned a towel from the other end of the room, and stood above Harry in the bathtub with it held out.  He waited patiently, knowing the towel was just far enough away that Harry would have to expose himself by getting up out of the bath.  Harry glared up at him.  Voldemort continued to grin until Harry gathered himself and snatched it out of his hand, modestly putting a hand in front of his groin while the others tactfully looked away.  He quickly wrapped himself up in the towel but struggled stepping out of the large bathtub, as its edges were high enough that Harry had to grab the sides to gain his balance.  Voldemort took hold of his elbow to help him but Harry shook him off.

“There’s a private room behind that third door,” Narcissa said with a gesture towards a dark wooden door.  Her emotions were hidden behind a serene hostly demeanor and an inscrutable occlumency barrier.  Harry quickly went to change.  As he left Lucius came in looking self-satisfied.

“All is well, my lord.  There was a simple question of what punishment would be acceptable for a lower level ministry witch who questions some of the new changes being made.  I simply suggested the most severe punishment we had at our disposal, as I knew you expect the highest standards for your servants at the Ministry.”

Best ​way to deal with Lucius was to ignore him.  ​Voldemort addressed Ysvley evenly.  “I want you to stay here.  Make an excuse for your absence from work, but you will not be at liberty to tell anyone where you’re staying, what you’re doing or who you’re treating.  Lucius, Narcissa, you’ll be responsible for casting the Unbreakable vow, and finding his quarters for his stay here.  Keeping Potter alive is of the utmost priority.”  Here he had to be careful.  “I’m sure you want to know why.”

“If it pleases your lord to keep the boy alive, we surely have no need to know.”  Lucius said eagerly.

That was true, but he waved him away.  “No, it’s important you have some idea of Potter’s role here.  Especially since keeping the boy alive and well will be your responsibility and honor.”  What details to keep hidden, what to share.  “I have had the full details of the prophecy involving my destiny and Potter’s revealed to me.  Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape worked together to deceive me, to convince me that Potter’s role was to subvert my role and overthrow my position as rightful ruler of our wizarding society.  In fact, the boy has no such glorious fate marked out for him.  His role is to be a tool for me to use to further my conquest of the world.  He will stay here, under my control and guidance, and learn how to serve his master obediently and willingly.”  He could tell this information did not please Lucius, who he knew had hoped to have a go at torturing the boy.  Harry returned from the dressing room, looking much more put together in a white linen shirt and formal dress pants.  “His safety and his containment will be your responsibility and burden.  Should he escape despite the best efforts of the noble Malfoy family, the punishment and dishonor will be yours alone.”  

The threat was thinly veiled.  Lucius looked at the thin, dark haired boy before him wearing his son's clothes with intense wariness and was met with a confidently raised chin.  Voldemort had his own doubts about whether he would be able to contain Harry, especially given the number of times he had failed in encounters with the boy in the past, but in truth he did not expect a lot from Lucius.  Harry was too important.  Ultimately, keeping him locked up and under control was for Voldemort to do.

“Narcissa, you and Ysvley have the task of returning the boy to health.  And outfit him with a suitable wardrobe to be around his master.  Lucius, make sure the security of the manor is up to par and that we have a suitable amount of potions and supplies on hand.  I hope that will not be too much for you.”  He outstretched a hand to the boy, who flinched.  “Harry.”

Harry eyed the hand for a moment before reluctantly putting the tips of his fingers on his Lord’s palm.  In an instant, they were gone in a firestorm of black smoke.

They appeared again in a different wing of the Malfoy mansion, one that was exclusively for the Dark Lord’s use.  The Malfoy library was a great thing of beauty, growing and expanding with each generation of Malfoys adding to its stores, and growing even more vast under Voldemort’s care.  The enhancement charms placed on it extended its high ceiling and dark wood bookshelves in two great wings that were long enough for several dragons to fit in, tail to nose. Stained glass windows shaped like all manners of creatures cast colored light over all of it, stools tall enough to reach the very highest shelves rolled obediently to each person who entered across vast areas.  The books inside, some of them recently re-added once the Ministry of Magic fell to the dark side, contained information on every subject imaginable.  In the center of the two wings was a vast fireplace, sitting area, desk area and a long formal dining room table, which was currently covered in books, papers, maps and diagrams.  Voldemort waved these away with a flick of his wand, but Harry’s eyes still lingered, and then he looked to the desk, where a good deal more of sensitive information was stored.

“This,” Voldemort pointed to the great fireplace and the red velvet sofa in front of it, “is where you will stay, under my watch, until your health has improved.”   He tapped his wand on the dining room table and two meals appeared on either side of the long table.  One, a bowl of broth for Harry.  Another, a fine rare steak with a pairing of red wine for Voldemort.  He gestured politely to one end of the table.  “Sit with me, Harry.”

Harry looked like there was nothing in the world he’d rather do less.  With a dour expression he walked over, pulled out the high back chair and sat.  He met Voldemort’s eyes for only a moment across the long stretch of table between them, but was the first to look away.  Voldemort stabbed in his steak and put a piece in his mouth.  Eating was a thing he endured for the sake of his physical body, but he didn’t enjoy it.  He suspected it was a side effect of the loss of his soul that tastes were dulled in his mouth and his hunger was never fully satisfied.

Harry did not eat.  He was staring down at his bowl with his fine eyebrows furrowed together, some nonsensical conflict happening behind his sulk.  Ah, suicidal thoughts.  He thought he could fulfill his duty to Dumbledore and the world by offing himself, and dealing Voldemort a blow to one precious piece of soul.  He stabbed a piece of steak, nonplussed.  

Murder was not as easy as innocents always assumed it to be, even suicide, even in the cause of something good.  In the heat of an intense moment, Harry was more than capable of plunging himself into the ocean, but to choose to violently off himself in a calm moment required an entirely different level of commitment than a healthy young man with a potentially long and happy life ahead of him was capable of.  He only had to show Harry what was possible.

“Please don’t be so stupid as to think I would allow you to starve yourself.  I’d shove nutrient elixirs down your throat myself if I had to.”  Harry met his gaze, startled by his cold voice in the otherwise silent room.  Voldemort smiled a little.  “I’m sure you’re capable of enduring starvation, just as you're capable of enduring the cruciatus curse, but what would you be accomplishing besides punishing yourself?”

Harry did not respond, but he didn’t pick up his spoon either.  

“Are you doing it because the feeling of starvation reminds you of your childhood with the muggles?”

Harry’s jaw clenched.  Voldemort felt a surge of the boy’s hatred for him.  “No. I’m just not hungry.”

Voldemort pointed with his steak knife.  “Eat.”

Anger, helplessness, humiliation, pain.  He felt those emotions on his tongue instead of flavor.  Harry picked up his spoon and swallowed a tiny portion of the broth, his eyes glowing.

“Let’s go over a few rules, Harry.”  He enjoyed the roll of the name across his tongue, and the way the boy’s attention was locked on him.  “There will be no escape or suicide attempts while you’re here with me.  Remember that I am constantly monitoring your mind and emotions and will know immediately if you’re tempted by any rebellious thoughts.  You do not have permission to access any books of the library or to look at any of my personal effects.  You’ll eat when you’re told to.  You’ll be respectful and obedient to the Death Eaters you see, especially Lucius Malfoy and Ysvley, who are in charge of you.”

Harry was choking on fury, he could practically hear him say Not bloody likely.   “And if I don’t you’ll crucio me?”

“No,” Voldemort smiled wryly.  “You’ve proven yourself too thick headed to punishments directed at you.  It’ll be innocent bystanders to get the whip instead.  Mr and Mrs Weasley.  Hogwarts students.  And you’re to call me Master when you address me.”

Harry simmered with rage, his hands were shaking with it.

“Do you understand, Harry?”

Harry went quiet and looked down like he was focused on the broth in front of him. He suspected he knew what humiliation was coming.  A wave of pain came in purposeful waves through his scar and he knew Voldemort was punishing him.

“Say it.”

No getting out of answering or pretending like he didn’t understand what was required of him.  Harry bit his lip, his eyes feverishly bright.  He said in a low voice, “yes, master.”

“Good.”  Voldemort took another bit of steak, viciously satisfied.  “Finish your soup.”  They ate their meal in tense silence, Harry now quickly eating to get the whole thing done with.  His thoughts projected across the space of the table in bright bursts of emotion and thought.  He was fuming with outrage, wishing he was back in his cell, wishing him dead, feeling like a failure for not being able to defy him.  If it wasn’t obvious by reading him through their connection, he probably could have guessed it all from the look on his face.

Voldemort finished his meal and the cutlery disappeared.  He waved a handful of papers and books back to their place on the table and pointed Harry to the sofa in front of the fire.  The boy left without a word.  He settled down in front of the fireplace, swarming with restless energy and anger.  

The books he had to get through were deeply metaphysical, relating to the nature of magical sources and wizarding bodies.  In his school years he’d been a diligent student, and his pursuit of knowledge had turned into a thirst in his later years.  It was part of what made him such a formidable wizard.  The Dark Lord opened the fifth volume of Elric Val Curcio's Theoretical Sorcery and tried to focus. 

…and if he thinks I’m going to do what Draco Malfoy commands me to do, he’ll have another thing coming…   He turned a page, not registering what he was seeing… and if I have to get undressed and shoved in a tub in front of every Death Eater I despise I’ll swallow my tongue… Voldemort snapped his book closed with a growing headache.  He hadn’t anticipated what a pain it would be to be so close to his young horcrux.  Nagini’s thoughts were always pleasantly aligned with his, not at all an intrusion.  He missed her calming, pet-like presence, which he had always assumed was so because of the way their souls connected.  What connection did he have with a hotheaded Gryffindor?  He was the exact opposite of how he, the Dark Lord, had always been when he was that age.  At seventeen, he had been determined to make his mark on the world and to prove himself.  The threat of hurting a little old lady would have never persuaded him of anything.

As though sensing his desire for her, the doors of the great library opened just a tiny amount.  He had charmed the doors of every room in the manor to respond to her.  It gave his Death Eaters quite a nasty shock, but he liked to keep them on their toes.  He’d also assured Nagini she was at leisure to eat any of them that she’d like.

She came crawling up the side of his chair, with her tongue flicking out to sense his mood.  He reached for her, abandoning his books in an instant.  She liked it when he pulled her up around his neck with her head beside his cheek.  Some people thought of snakes as unfeeling, but they were incredibly sensitive creatures.  Sensitive to light, warmth, scent and sound.  They had a sense of humor and favorites among their companions.  Different personalities.

Nagini liked his touch.  Some snakes didn’t, even though most liked his company.  She liked it when he stroked under her chin, on her temples, on the smooth, soft skin on her neck.  She was a familiar, comforting weight around him, heavy enough that he sometimes found it difficult to rise with her around him.  Now he just sat and stroked her and thought.

Sometime later, she raised her head lazily and spoke to him.  You’re fussing over something.

I’m worried about something.  I have got it taken care of.

She was unconvinced and knew exactly what was going through his mind.  He might resent that, from any other companion.  I can smell the fever in the air.  Will he die?

No, I don’t think so.  He’s young and strong, despite how he looks now.  Ysvley assures me with time and proper care the boy will be fine.  Just as well.  It’s time we integrate him into our life here.

He had the sense Nagini was putting consideration into something.  Her thoughts were far more opaque than a human’s, especially when they were more complex than thinking about what she wanted to eat next. 

Darling?   He said encouragingly to her slow consideration.

I felt it, when I was with him in the tub.  A sort of hum, hum, hum of your essence in him.  It’s like warmth on his skin or the way a wizard is when he’s about to do magic.  Yes, she had settled on it.  It’s magic.  Your magic.

I know that.  He was a little annoyed.  He’d told her that Harry was a horcrux, he didn’t know what she thought was so important.  He’s the same as you are.  I did the same ritual.

I don’t have that.  She sounded so sure, but he couldn't imagine why.  When are you going to feed me again? I’m hungry and I want to eat a big fat pig like that one you brought me in summer.

I’ll get you one.  He promised.  Suddenly, he remembered the third member of the room, who possessed all kinds of magical talents, including the ability to speak parseltongue, if he remembered correctly.  He stood up with Nagini’s great weight around him, and she curled in tighter to him, burrowing the tip of her tail into his robe for warmth.  He walked with a building anger, imagining Harry listening in using the very powers Voldemort had given him.

But Harry was not listening.  He was sleeping with his head flung back on the sofa at an awkward angle, his arms still crossed like he’d passed out while still fuming.  His black eyelashes fluttered with dreams, and his mouth was slightly open.  Chortling slightly, he let Nagini unwind herself from his neck and settle before the fire in a curled up puddle.

He went back to his books, much more focused.  He had several projects he was working on at any time, from new laws he wanted to enact for wizarding society to metaphysical sciences that he was sure he could progress to the hunt for rare and powerful objects.  He kept himself busy during the many hours of the day that seemed to drag on when one needed only a few hours of sleep.

He sent most of his directives to the Ministry and his Death Eaters using a black eagle with a green wax seal engraved with his serpent emblem.  Reports came back regularly through owls, except when he demanded they be made in person.  Spies didn’t use owls.  They used a complicated encrypted code that was communicated directly into the pages of a special book he kept on his desk.  Then there were weekly meetings with his top officials, where they made excuses for their lack of progress in hunting down traitors and enacting changes. 

In general, he was very satisfied with the state of things, despite the failures of his employees.  With Albus Dumbledore dead, Harry Potter captured, the Ministry fallen and the average wizard and witch too afraid to step a toe out of line or else be sent to the dementors, it was everything he ever imagined it’d be.  Even the splendor he was surrounded by was what he’d always wanted for himself.

But of course he still didn’t feel satisfied.

He worked now on solving a seventeen year old mystery wrapped up in prophecy and dark magic that no living soul understood.  There were some dead souls that understood the corrupt and evil practice of immortality. None that understood it better than him… but he certainly wasn’t the only practitioner.

He even discovered in his research how he might contact her.  He had never felt the slightest allure of living as a shade after death, of having no way back, no power.  It frightened him: the thought of eternity.  Not so for every witch and wizard.  There were ways to maintain contact or influence through certain channels after death but it was considered a dark art.  In the case of Agnese Ruethatcher, she was half way between the two worlds, living in the veil, in a very sophisticated device called a repository soulcatcher.  She was able to observe the world and speak, but not interact.

Horrid existence, as far as he was concerned.

The soulcatcher was a fragile glass orb that had to hear the name of the soul they held three times under the moonlight before the ghostly presence of Agnese would reveal herself.  He had already dug up her grave but did not find it buried there with her.  She had no living descendants to pass it onto either.  He had a list of places that she might have hidden her soulcatcher, but a witch like her wouldn’t have made it easy to find.  

Fortunately, he knew exactly what creature might have an easy time finding something like that.  He summoned one by having Lucius send a patronus out.  He could still make one himself, but it wasn’t… easy.  

He had other ways to deal with dementors, besides using a patronus. 

It came as it was called, bringing a wave of cold air and despair with it.  He was familiar with this one, or at least he thought he was.  You could sometimes tell the individuals apart by their height or by their cloak.  He’d never managed to see the decaying flesh of the half dead wizards underneath their cloaks, but he knew others had.  It was a well-guarded secret that dementors were born when wizards died of despair and couldn’t move on, or had the final kiss at the lips of another dementor.  As their flesh rotted they lost all their individuality and were consumed only with their desire to ingest living souls and happiness.  This one was one of their leaders by virtue of its strength and how many souls it had consumed.  The fog that traveled with it swirled outward underneath its black cloak.

“I need a favor.”

I need another soul.  An easy exchange.  It always was.

“I need you to find something for me and keep it whole and undamaged.  A repository soulcatcher.  Could you find it?”

Can you find a seashell in the ocean?

Not an encouraging answer.  He hated when they spoke in riddles.  “I’m looking for one particular seashell. Can you find it?”

A seashell is a seashell.

Unusually opaque.  A seashell is a seashell.  He pondered what that could mean by tapping the elder wand on his thigh.  He could find a seashell in the ocean, yes, he could go there himself, he could summon it to him, he could have someone get it for him but none of that was particularly useful, because the soulcatcher that Agnese Ruethatcher was no doubt had spells that prevented it from being summoned.  If the dementors were capable of finding out where it was by itself, it wouldn’t have posed such a riddle. 

This was a problem and he had to think deeply about what specific request to ask of the dementor.  He was gripping the bridge of his nose between his fingers, distracted, when he asked.  “What if I told you what harbor the seashell was in?”

The dementor was not in front of him anymore.  It was leaning over the edge of the couch, its foul, rotting face pointed downward at the boy below and it was sucking.  Breathing in like it was pulling something substantial towards it, with great difficulty, a silver essence that was drifting towards it.  Voldemort’s wand was at the ready, and the words on his lips, but it took more than that, he knew it did.  He had to dig deep inside…

Happiness was taking over the ministry, making Nagini a horcrux, no it wouldn’t be strong enough… opening the chamber of secrets and whispering parseltongue to the basilisk inside… all things he’d tried before and failed, damn it, he knew a memory powerful enough he just hated to use it…

Dumbledore’s face was less lined and his eyes were almost kind.  You are special, Tom.  You’re like me.  You’re a wizard.

“ Expecto Patronum! ”  A snake lunged through the air, incorporeal and huge.  It hit the dementor and then it might as well have been corporeal because it slammed the thing away, twisting and biting and pursuing him through the air.  The dementor let out an unworldly howl and fled, sinking through the walls of the manor, with the giant serpent close on its tail.

He heard the ragged, harsh breathing coming from the couch and he was there in an instant, needing to see the boy was alive with his own two eyes.  Harry’s green eyes were wide open and his face was ghostly white.  He was clutching at the edges of the couch and his eyes slid past Voldemort to where the dementor had been.  Voldemort reached out a hand and pressed it to Harry’s forehead.  His temperature was up.

“How dare it,” he was seething, furious with himself and the monstrous scrap of a former wizard that couldn’t control itself.  He paced around the table with his temper surging, as it often did, and the incorporeal serpent patronus returned to him, slunk underneath the table and out of sight.  “I gave it orders not to attack any creatures without command.  As if I don’t give it enough to feed on.  Ungrateful, inhuman thing.  Lucius!  Ysvley!”  He pressed the tattoo on his forearm and kicked a table over when they didn’t immediately appear.  He circled back around to the couch to look at Harry again, who was visibly shaken and flinched when he saw him.

“My lord…” They came in together, hesitantly, and Voldemort turned on them.

“You were doing more pressing things than answering me, I see.”  It came out like a hiss.  Someone had to pay for his anger.  “A dementor was in here.  It came after Harry.  It sucked some energy out of him.  His fever’s up.  Dammit, it should have known better than to attack.” 

Harry popped his head up over the couch to look owl-eyed at the new arrivals, and Ysvley hurried over to him, producing a piece of chocolate from inside of his robes.  “Here, eat.”  He said as he handed it off and pressed a hand to Harry’s forehead.

“And what have you been doing?  Doesn’t this godforsaken manor have spells in place that are supposed to weaken dementors? Why is this manor so goddamn useless?”  He got very close to Lucius’s face, enjoying sadistically the way the color drained and left him looking limp.  “I ought to vacate it for a more worthy premise.  I ought to turn this residence over to a wizarding family that really deserves it.” 

“It’s not his fault.  Dementors always come after me.”  Harry’s voice was hoarse.  Ysvley was trying to feed him a block of dark chocolate and a spoonful of green medicine.  

“What do you mean, they always come after you?”

“Dementors.  Ever since I first met one, they've been more attracted to me than others.  I suspect it has to do with…” the extra soul, he was going to say, but had the prudence not to say it aloud.  Voldemort heard it anyway.  

There were wards in the manor to prevent it from being at full strength here and it might not have been able to enter if it weren't invited.  It should have had the instincts of self-preservation to prevent it from acting out in front of the Dark Lord, but if it were tempted enough by the presence of… whatever Harry was, it could have risked having a taste.  Another complication.

He pressed a thin finger to his temple, massaging an oncoming headache away.  A seashell is a seashell.   Ah, of course.

“Lucius,” he said.  “Is there a repository soulcatcher in the Malfoy collection of magical objects?”  His servant was thrown off as much by his master’s matter-of-fact tone as he was his request, but he answered quite eagerly.

“Indeed there is, my lord, an antique of the thirteenth century, but I’m afraid it’s been used by the ghost of my great-great-grandfather, Perseus Malfoy.”  

“Bring me it.”  Lucius bowed sharply and turned to go.  Harry was watching with keen interest that he was trying to disguise by looking shaken and pale, an effort that was convincing no one except the healer that was trying to feed him another portion of medicine.  Voldemort raised an eyebrow pointedly and was pleased he didn’t have to order Harry to cooperate.  He was thinking of a more creative way to kill himself than dying of a fever, but Voldemort decided to ignore that, for now.  He dismissed the healer and settled down at the table.

“Your patronus is a snake, then?”  Harry was sitting up on the sofa.  Illness and attack were obviously not enough to quiet him. 

“Yes, a basilisk.”

“A basilisk?”  Harry echoed.  “That didn’t look like a basilisk to me.”

The look Voldemort gave him was enough to wither flesh away.  He had not forgotten what had happened to his beloved pet or rather who had happened. “I am the heir to slytherin.  My patronus has always been a basilisk.  I was surprised to find yours didn’t take the form of a lion to represent your connection to Gryffindor, or a phoenix, like your mentor.”

“My dad’s patronus was a stag.”

“It suited him.  Lacking the brains of a monkey or the power of a lion.  Prey with an inflated ego.”  He picked up his quill and dipped it into the inkwell as Harry glowered.  This time when he turned back towards the fire it was with the clear intention of ignoring him.

Lucius returned flushed with pride and his fingers shaking slightly with nerves.  In his hands was a stained glass globe that reflected the candlelight in the library with its swirling patterns and inscribed ruins.  The soulcatcher was the deep mauve red of old blood, and the ruins had been scratched into the glass roughly, by fingernails.  Such was the dark arts, and the sacrifice it entailed.  He placed it on the table before his dark lord and stepped away, bowing respectfully.

“Dismissed.”

Lucius bowed low before quickly making himself scarce.  Voldemort picked up the orb with a single hand, inspecting the ruins on it.  Now was the perfect time to seek out answers to the questions he had.  The moonlight streaking into the library was the pale silver light of a waxing half moon.  Agnese would only be half-spectral then, a weaker form than she would be a few weeks later on.  He went to one of the great windows of the library, in full view of Harry Potter, who had raised his head from his folded arms to watch.  He brought the orb close to his lips and whispered her name three times.

At first, nothing happened.  There was silence in the library besides the gentle spitting and cracking of the fireplace.  The moment grew taunt with anticipation.  He had the patience not to break the silence by speaking.  A dark witch like Agnese wouldn’t be harassed into appearing any quicker.

When she did begin to appear, it was in bits and pieces of tiny particles making themselves whole in the moonlight.  A soul caught in the half-way realm was less coherent than a real ghost and not able to bind itself permanently to any reality.  She was observing him squarely and leaning against a thick, knobby wooden walking stick.  She looked much as she must have before she died; thick bodied and short with a twisted leg.  Nearly a century old with all the wrinkles and scars to show for it.  Some wizards and witches forgot or began not to care at all for their appearance in old age, and she was one such witch.  The robe she’d died in was fraying badly around her feet.  Her hair was tied into a tight bun on top of her head, a crude imitation of the transfiguration teacher McGonagal, but she lacked definition in her face, so the effect was severe and a little sad.  

Her voice was startlingly real.  “Tom Riddle.  I was wondering when I’d be hearing from you.”

“Miss Ruethatcher.”  He knew how to schmooze old ladies like this, no matter how unfriendly they might appear.  “The pleasure will have to be all mine for now.  For many years I have been hoping to meet you as I’ve studied your research and expeditions in the dark arts.  I consider myself something of a student of yours.”

“I’m not sure my research and expeditions into the dark arts could truly impress one such as you,” she replied as slickly.  “The only grounds on which I might consider myself your teacher would be my greatly advanced age.  I suppose if you consider a measly little spider like Horace Slughorn a mentor that might justify you being my distant disciple, but I hated to think of him as my servant even while I wiped his adolescent nose, so don’t think it’ll earn you any favors from me now.”

Unpleasant old bat.  “I was hoping to have an exchange of information with you as scholars.  One such as you that invested so heavily in preserving your soul and life to keep death at bay should appreciate the lengths I’ve gone and the curiosity that now lies before us.”

“Invested in keeping death at bay… yes, I suppose you would understand my decisions that way…”  She was smiling in a knowing manner.  “Oh, I know all about the lengths you’ve gone to keep death at bay vol-du-mort, ” she used the french pronunciation, and his teeth ground with every syllable.  “It’s interesting how different you are from other great wizards of the past who saw death as a natural and desirable step in life.  I suppose you still feel like you have something to prove as a half-blood descendant of the great wizard Salazar Slytherin.”

“I don’t have anything to prove.”  He said with a sneer.  “Not with the success I’ve seen.”  Black fury was pooling in his stomach but he reigned his emotions in.  On the couch, Harry was pressing his hand to his forehead.

“No, you summoned me to get answers to the questions you have about that prophecy you’re obsessed with and the boy you’ve infected with your soul.”  She was careless of his anger, completely at ease.  “You misunderstand.  I chose to appear before you of my own free will, but there’s little I can hope to learn from you.  You think my choice to put part of my soul in a repository soulcatcher was foolish, don’t you?”

His words were very clipped. “You’re less than a shade.  You can only appear when people call for you.  You exist without the power to communicate or to affect any aspect of reality.  Yes, I think it’s foolish.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.  I can affect reality, in fact I’m doing it right now.”  Her ugly mouth was twisted in a grin.  “And if you had any understanding of the sacrifice intrinsic to the dark arts you’d understand that in return for my sacrifice of my body and my power I gained a closer eternity than you’ll ever have and a much higher prize.  Knowledge.”  

He scoffed.

“I was there when you were born.” She said,  “When the prophecy of Trelawney was spoken, when you destroyed yourself against the force of a mother’s love and when you returned.  I exist in a reality beyond time or space, I’ve seen the lives of more souls than you comprehend, all their lives and struggles and secrets.  That’s what I gained for the small cost of my body and power.  I know the answers to the questions you seek, but don’t imagine you have anything of equal value to exchange.”

“If that’s so, why appear before me?”

“To influence reality.”  There was something savage in the wideness of her smile that reminded him of Bellatrix Lestrange.  If she wanted to use him to influence the course of history by revealing or concealing information, that was fine, as long as he got something out of it.  He would just have to be careful.

“The only thing you can influence is me.”  He reminded her.  “I control reality.  If you were there when the Trelawney prophecy was made, then you must know the truth of it.  That it foretells my ascension to power and the fall of Albus Dumbledore’s so-called light side.”

“Does it foretell that?”  She asked mysteriously.  “My, that doesn’t sound like the words I heard.  Clever of him, to let loose just enough information to send you after the boy.  It was a decent bet of Albus that you’d put so much focus on killing the boy you wouldn’t realize what he was.  It almost worked too, as I remember.  Now that his plan has failed, fate has set the world on an entirely different course.  What you want to know is how having the boy as a horcrux will guarantee your rise to power, is that right?

It was right but he wouldn’t admit it.  “Sources say putting a soul in a living body is dangerous.  A living body has a will of its own and can die easily of its own accord.”

“I myself only used living animals to hide my soul.  Cats were always close to me, each individual had a special place in my heart.  Do you know how many horcruxes I made?”

“Five, from what I heard.”

“Eleven, actually, by the time the Ministry caught up with me.”  That was surprising to him.  He’d always believed that a nine-split soul was the most anyone had done, the most anyone was capable of doing.  She responded like she heard what he was thinking, “it broke me down more than I care to admit.  You’ll have noticed it, too, of course.  Certain sensations become dull, some emotions become more powerful, thoughts lose a certain amount of logical… coherence.  You must assume that I lost my horcruxes before I sacrificed my body.”

He had assumed that.  “Why would you give up your body while your soul was still safe?”

“I was sick of clinging to life, that’s all.  Never cared to live forever.  Life wasn’t good enough to wish for that. Now, we get down to your fundamental misunderstanding of what a horcrux is and why I made them.  First one I made I hid away in a piece of jewelry I had gotten from my mother.  I did everything you’re supposed to after you do the hideous task of creating the horcrux.  I enchanted protections around it, I buried it deep where no one should have found it.  But it was found.”  In the moonlight, the old witch drifted a few feet away from the bookshelf.  Her eyes were fixed somewhere far away.  “Someone did find it.  An old friend turned into an enemy of mine.  They destroyed it but they didn’t destroy me, and so I decided to make another one.  I didn’t notice the changes taking place at that point, but maybe I had become a little more reckless.  I chose my pet cat.”

“You said you split your soul eleven times.  I thought it impossible to survive that.”

“I’m getting there.  I chose my pet cat, but it didn’t take.  The cat had a soul of its own and trying to impose mine warped it beyond what it was capable of enduring.  It died a miserable death, half human and tortured.  By all accounts, it should have worked.  Caligula was famous for making a horcrux of his pet dog, there are historical records of it, for those who know what to look for.   But you know how it is when you make a horcrux, once you get past the horrible act it requires you hardly notice at all the cost you’re taking on, so I resolved to try again, and make an experiment out of it.  Taboo magic was always my specialty.  Further you go into the dark arts, the more you understand the fundamentals of source magic.  I daresay I understand the fundamentals of the soul better than most any witch or wizard, living or dead.”

He seriously doubted that to be true and it wasn’t just his ego talking.  Dark witches and wizards always seemed to think they had special knowledge, whether that was true or not.  Agnese Ruethatcher was a few cards short of a full deck, and he knew half of her experiments in her later years to have been ridiculous, pointless things, no doubt the influence of having her soul fractured into twelve parts driving her into insanity.  He didn’t like the way she was looking at the boy sitting up on the sofa.  Seeing him and seeing beyond him.

“You got him as a baby, I’m assuming?”

“Excuse me?”  It was Harry that said that, affronted.  Voldemort wished he’d sent the boy away before contacting the witch. 

“Quiet, boy.”

“You got him as a child, that’s why he’s still alive.  I discovered it takes better when they're younger and have less of a fully formed soul.  Do you know why wizards need wands?”

He knew quite a bit about wandlore, having pursued and attained the elder wand.  He hated being asked such a stupid question.  “Wands conduct the source of our magic into a controlled medium so we can use magic at will.”

“A textbook answer, but technically correct.  Do you know why they’re able to do that?”

He ground his teeth together.  “I told you.  They conduct–”

“Stay focused here, boy.  You’ve heard of the rule of conductivity?  And what does that rule require?”  She was enjoying treating him like a student in a lecture, he could see that.  He had to allow her to enjoy herself until he got the information he needed out of her.

He took a deep breath and said evenly.  “A plural.”

“Quite correct, quite correct.  You see, a wizard or witch by themselves is all but helpless.  It’s what allowed goblins and muggles and all sorts of creatures to take advantage of them in our prehistoric days, before wands, when we didn’t have access to our magic or knowledge of spellcasting.  When magic was performed, it was called a ‘miracle’.  Now, we call it accidental magic, and it’s mostly done by adolescent witches and wizards.”  She prowled in front of the fireplace as she spoke in a gravelly, hoarse voice.  “The rule of conductivity means that magic works best when it’s capable of moving, changing form and acting between two bodies of magic.  Magical source can only exist in a living thing, it cannot exist in an object, no matter how cleverly enchanted, it exists in a soul.  Wizards, witches, magical creatures, magical plants and trees all have individual souls.  A wizard’s wand is made of the heart of an ancient, magical tree and it’s filled with some source power of a magical creature to keep it alive.  Interaction between a wizard’s magic and his wand is what produces controlled magic.”

“Thank you for that illuminating explanation.” Voldemort said sarcastically.  “That is explained to a wizard in his first year of studies.”

“I’m getting somewhere.”  She said,  “What do you think happens when you put your soul into a creature with its own magical source?”

Ah.  “The rule of conductivity creates a flow of magic between us.”

“It’s not like the flow between a wizard and his wand.”  She said, smiling a little.  She looked down at the boy with green eyes watching her.  “The normal rules don’t apply.  Found that out for myself.  The cats I kept around me were ancient breeds from Egypt and Syria.  Some could see the hidden realms of the dead behind the veil.  Some could move soundlessly across space at will.  When I made a soul contract with each new cat, I learned something new.  I gained new abilities even as I passed on abilities of my own to my horcruxes.”

Harry blurted out, “I don’t have any abilities.”

She shrugged.  “Maybe it won’t work, then.  I don’t know.  I never made a horcrux out of a human.  All I know is that when I placed my soul into something that had a soul of its own, I always gained something in return.  What influence you will yield over an independent soul once you’ve imposed your soul over it, what gifts you may gain in return…”  Her ugly mouth twisted upwards in a leering grin.  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

Voldemort was looking at Harry with new eyes.  Harry’s eyebrows were twisted and troubled, and he looked at the old witch warily.  “Is there any way for me to get rid of his soul?”

“Harry,” Voldemort said sharply as Agnese laughed.

“I’m not the one who’d know, I’m afraid.  You’ve no doubt heard of the various ways in which one can destroy a horcrux, even bring the soul back into the master wizard, but to get rid of another’s soul in our own body?”  She shrugged.  “Not sure.  I’ll be curious to see what you try to do, Harry.  I really am fascinated by this whole situation, and sympathetic to your plight, of course.”  Her smile was not the least bit friendly.

“Enough.  The boy doesn’t need to hear anymore.”

“You said you were there when the original prophecy was made,” Harry said.  “What did it say?”

“Enough!”  Voldemort picked up the repository soulcatcher and held it outstretched.  He’d smash it and disperse the witch if she didn’t do as he wanted her to.  “Tell him nothing.”

Her smile curdled.  “I don’t take orders from you.  You think you can dismiss me like some common ghost?”  

“I’ve heard all I needed from you.”

“You haven’t heard all I’ve got to say,” she was fuming, her scar face twisted with broken, irrational rage.  “You think you’re better than me, don’t you?   Think that I’m a lesser creature, a lesser sorcerer…”   

He did not care to indulge her tantrum.  He doubted he'd need her again.  With a smile, he let the repository soulcatcher fall from his hands onto the hard stone floor, where it shattered in many red and brown little pieces.  In the moonlight, Agnese moved forward with a snarl and began to speak.  Her voice was as clear as it ever had been, but she solely addressed the boy sitting before her on the couch.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not.”  

“Enough!”  Voldemort had his wand withdrawn, but he didn’t know what spell to cast to banish this apparition.  Instead he turned his wand on the wide-eyed boy listening, “ Muffliato!”

Harry turned on him and began to curse at him, but Voldemort hardly noticed because Agnese was not done with him yet.  She came closer to the boy and Voldemort quietly began casting every spell he knew of to get rid of a ghost or poltergeist, she should not have been able to touch or affect the boy but the fear from seeing a witch like that so close to his horcrux…  

She pressed her finger to Harry’s forehead, inches away from his scar, and Voldemort saw it as Harry felt the experience rock through his body.  She was using occlumency to insert a memory on a willing and open mind, he’d seen witches and wizards do it dozens of times before, but he could do nothing except watch as Harry’s mind opened…

Sybill Trelawney’s bespectacled eyes were blank and unseeing and her voice deep and melodic as she spoke before her audience of living and dead people.  A young Albus Dumbledore had his hat in his hands, and a bright robe of green and gold.  Behind the door, a pale faced Severus Snape was listening closely.

“The power hidden shall bring an end to his reign, the power unveiled shall bring glory to the Dark Lord… For the old world will burn from the fire of two phoenixes, but not one alone, for shared in common shall be their power, and shared in common shall be their death…”  Her smile was triumphant as she finished the verse.  'A millennium one phoenix will reign, a millennium one phoenix will receive.’

Harry collapsed backward into unconsciousness.  Voldemort lunged for him, found his pulse was steady and turned his snarl upward to the interfering, meddlesome witch who was now backing up into the moonlight with a jubilant and knowing smile.  How dangerous could a witch be with only knowledge at their disposal, how might she have influenced the flow of history… 

She made it very clear to him that she was leaving on her own accord as she calmly rearranged her skirts and turned as though to apparate.  Then Agnese Ruethatcher disappeared and left the library and the moonlight empty.

Harry slept soundly on the couch for sixteen hours after the witch Ruethatcher knocked him unconscious.  For a day and a half he was dead to the world and a very silent piece of furniture in Voldemort’s office.  His mouth hung open slightly and at one point he was thoroughly drooling on the antique velvet sofa.  

He could be persuaded to take medicine only by forcefully opening his mouth and shoving it so far down his throat he had to swallow.  His fever had returned and his forehead was the same temperature as the coals burning in the bottom grate of the fireplace.  Sometimes he shivered fiercely no matter how warm the fire was, and other times he kicked off all his blankets and sweat profusely.  Voldemort passed a hand over him whenever he walked by to check he was still alive.  His hand always seemed to find the white scar that zigzagged out of sight underneath his black hair.  Harry felt it every time he touched him there, like a bolt of electricity that ran down to his toes and shocked him awake, if only for a moment.  He would’ve tried to swat Voldemort’s hand away but his arms felt like they had ten pounds each attached to them, and he was always moved on by the time Harry made up his mind.  Eventually it felt so good to sleep that he didn’t care.

When he did finally wake up, he was surprised by his surroundings.  In his dreams, sometimes he was back at Hogwarts, or on the run, or in his little cell. 

His eyelids kept closing, but he struggled onward to get up, and eventually pushed himself up to his elbows.  The blanket spread over his legs was red plaid and not familiar to him at all.  One of his legs was hanging off the sofa and the other was brought up to his chest.  One of his arms was underneath his head and numb from poor circulation.  

When he raised himself up enough to look over the couch, he saw Voldemort sitting at the head of the great table he’d once eaten dinner at, looking over a long sheet of parchment intently.  Books and papers were strewn up and down the table instead of food.  He didn’t know if it was morning or evening but the light coming in sideways was golden.  He scrubbed a numb hand over his face, and when he looked again, Voldemort’s slit-like red eyes were on his.  

“What day is it?”  He blurted.

“It’s been a day and a half.”  He tapped a feather pen into ink and delicately tapped out the extra.  “Good thing you’re up, it’s time to take another bath.  I’ll summon Narcissa.”

Harry scowled.  He pushed off the sofa and laid back down, thinking of all the ways he could get out of going and stripping naked in front of people he hated.  While he was thinking about it, he closed his eyes for a second.

And woke up to see Narcissa Malfoy standing over him.  She was wearing a cream colored dress suit that matched the pale color of her face and hair, complete with cream colored high heels and a small purse.  He wondered if she’d been taken away from something else.  Her tight face was pursed.

“Hi,” he said blearily.  

“Hello, Harry.”

It took him a while to untangle himself from the blanket wrapped around his legs.  Narcissa was dignified and patient as she led around the table where Lord Voldemort sat with his papers and books, out of the big oak door.  His legs were shaking and weak, but he tried his best to match her dignity.  He had to keep his wits about him to learn everything he could about Malfoy Manor.

His pace moving down the hallway was slow. It gave him time to gawk at all the expensive things they passed and mentally map out the structure of the mansion.  Like the walls of Hogwarts, there was a diverse range of large, expensive paintings, although these were mostly paintings of hollow boned, pale aristocrats.  They sneered at him in a very familiar way.  There was a ballroom that was decorated with gold trim and had a sky blue painted ceiling. One of the white Greek statues turned and stared at him as they passed.  Another open door gave him a glimpse of a room full of bird cages and marvelous colorful things that squawked and flapped in their tiny spaces.

  As they walked, a small white folded paper bird came flying in through one end of the hallway and landed in Narcissa’s outstretched hand.  She opened it and read it with a frown, then made it disappear with a swish of her wand.  There was something in the delicate, pointed tip of her chin and the shape of her mouth that reminded him of her son.

“Is Draco around?” 

“He is.  You might see him around, our Lord has also tasked him with taking care of you.”  She conjured a white piece of paper to hang in the air, and her thin eyebrows furled together as she concentrated on delicate handwriting appearing on it.  The bird folded itself up, experimentally flapped its paper wings a few times, and then lifted up off her hand and disappeared down the hallway.  “Pardon me.  The mansion is so large, Lucius and I developed a way to communicate across the distance.” 

“What’s Draco doing now that he’s not in school?” 

“He’s staying up on his studies,” she said.  “It’s a tradition in the Black family to apprentice under a family member for at least a year after graduating from NEWT levels.”  The first Black family relative to pop into Harry’s head was a woman with thick, curly black hair and a screeching laugh, but she clarified.  “Lucius is teaching him. And of course he still has his duties to the Dark Lord.”

Harry didn’t ask what those duties might entail.

He knew Malfoy manor to be square shaped, with four great towers on each side, a large courtyard and yards extending in either direction.  What were the chances he could escape, without a wand, and with either Voldemort or the Malfoy family watching him every hour of the day?  

They were silent for a few minutes as they walked.  Finally they reached a familiar looking dark oak door surrounded by large gray stones.  The doors opened automatically at a touch from Narcissa.  A surge of warm, humid air greeted them.

“How have you been feeling?  Fever still?”  She took off her white gloves and coat and hung them on a coat hanger by the door.  The Lyons-Gate bathtub was in the corner, and like an obedient dog, it perked up when they walked in.  

“Uh, yeah.”  Harry said.  “Yeah, I think so, but I’m not throwing up anymore.  I feel fine.”  He’d more or less given up on committing suicide by encouraging his fever.

“Draco used to get the worst fevers when he was little.  They’d last about a week or so, and each time I thought he was sick enough to go to the hospital, but Lucius would insist we bring a healer here.”  She spoke idly as she went about getting herbs ready near the potion cabinet.  Her voice was soft.  “I’ll fill the tub.  There’s a robe in the changing room you can use.”

No use putting it off.  He went into the changing room, the same room he’d used the last time to change into Draco’s castoff clothes.  Now he took them off, gingerly, noting that they were slightly wet and smelling like sweat.  He hated being naked in Malfoy manor.  He felt like at any second Voldemort was going to waltz in and crucio him.  Quickly, he shrugged on the robe and came back out to find the smell of herbs in the air.

“Get in the tub.”  Her tone was business-like.  “And take the Boxt-Passley potion, a whole dose of it.”

He did as he was told, only depositing his robe when her back was turned and then sinking quickly into the water.  The warmth of the water turned into steam in the air and filled his nose with the smell of herbs and medicinal potions.  He sank down low enough to cover everything but his shoulders.

“An hour,” Narcissa instructed, settling down on a chair nearby, with her feet tucked neatly on top of each other.  She pulled a small notebook out of her purse and flipped through the pages restlessly.  Within moments, another note came fluttering in through the oak doors in the form of a frantically fluttering origami bird. 

 Harry put his arms around his legs and closed his eyes.  It was easier to doze off this time, without Voldemort prowling nearby and everyone making a big deal of everything while he sat around naked.  Exhaustion weighed his eyelids down.

He jerked awake with a quick gasping intake of air and looked frantically around and behind him, expecting to see narrowed red eyes and a waxy pale face, or maybe the open mouth and pointed fangs of his pet Nagini inches away from him.  Neither of them were there, but he’d felt their presence, he could have sworn… he turned back to face a startled Narcissa with his face as pale and ashy as hers was.

“Sorry, I thought…” He didn’t know what he’d thought, but now a flush was creeping up his neck.  “Just a dream.”

“That’s fine,” she said.  “The hour’s finished anyway.”  She cleared her throat and turned away from him, giving him privacy to get out of the bath, which he gratefully seized.  He quickly wrapped the towel next to the tub around himself and made to go to the changing room, but Narcissa stopped him.  “There’s fresh clothes for you in the changing room.  We had it mended to better fit you.”

“Right.”  He nodded, and went to the changing room, feeling ashamed as he held up the new clothes placed out for him.  Being dressed by the Malfoys was worse than wearing his worn down old muggle clothes.  These were higher quality, wizard made; black pants and coat, a white undershirt, a starched dress shirt and a dark green tie.

When he came out, Narcissa was smoothing her white gloves over her white dress.  She fixed a smile on her face when she saw him.  Her husband was standing next to her, scowling at him and looking him up and down in his new clothes. 

 Harry made just as sour of a face back at him and couldn’t help but snipe.  “What are you doing here?  Shouldn’t you be running errands and restocking the potion supply?”

“Careful, boy.  Our Lord has given me permission to use the cruciatus curse on you to keep you in line.”  Lucius had an especially ugly face when it was twisted in a grimace. 

Narcissa smoothed the collar of Lucius Malfoy’s shirt and laid a loving hand on his check.  “Now, I’m sure Harry will behave himself, won’t you, Harry?  We have more than enough work to do to get ready for the party this summer and it will all be so much easier if we all get along.”  

A muscle in Lucius’s cheek clenched. “No need to give him information, Narcissa.”

“What party?”  Harry asked her.  Summer had to be far away, he’d lost track of time but it couldn’t have been more than February.

“He’ll know eventually.  And he’ll be around to plan it.”  Narcissa looked for something in her husband’s face, but when it stayed tight and cold, she sighed.  “Draco needs to be at a fitting in London and I wanted to go with him.  You’ll stay here with the boy?”

He nodded stiffly, and touched her arm gently.  She swept past a vision in white and opened up the oak doors letting the heat and steam drift away.  Lucius turned to Harry, and gestured for him to follow, which he did reluctantly.  Narcissa turned to the right in a stately manner, but Lucius poked Harry in the back with his wand and gestured to the left.

So they went back together, a great deal less pleasant of a walk than it had been with Narcissa, but he was starting to learn the way around the manor.  He could feel Lucius’s bad mood on his back and hear it in the way he ground his teeth together.  He wasn’t altogether surprised when, before they arrived at the library, Lucius grabbed him by the shoulder and slammed him up against the wall.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he spit out between clenched teeth.  His wand was pressing hard against Harry’s jugular.  “The Dark Lord wants you alive, but he has expressed to me that he is more than willing to see you dismembered.”  The wand pressed more painfully against his throat.  “Tortured.  Locked away.  Castrated.”  He was smiling now, smiling cruelly.  Harry had no choice but to look into his eyes and say nothing.  “The only other fate you had available to you was to fight and die like a dog, you ought to be grateful you’re being allowed to live in such a fine manner.”

Harry spat in his face.

Lucius drew back with the spit wet on his check and Harry watched the anger slowly take hold there.  His eyes were pale gray and cold.  His wand drew back as his hand came around Harry’s throat to take its place, and Harry wrestled with it, tried to draw away and fight back, but he couldn’t.  He hadn’t eaten a real meal in so long.  He was helpless now, but he’d been helpless before.  He bared his teeth and braced himself.

“Now, now.”  Drawled a cold voice.  “Does this count as an abuse of power?”

“My lord.”  Lucius pulled back and bowed low before his lord, who was leaning against the door to the library with an amused smile on his serpentine face.  “My Lord, I– I’m sorry, I was just–”

“Making empty threats?  Or were you truly planning on dismembering, torturing, locking away and… castrating… my young companion here?”  Harry knew that smile.  He knew that Voldemort was in a rather upbeat mood, he could feel it through his scar.  That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to torture someone.  In fact, he’d be willing to bet the one thing that could make Voldemort even happier would be doing just that.

He also knew that maybe the one person Voldemort enjoyed tormenting more than him was Lucius Malfoy.  The dark lord approached, with each barefoot slow and measured on the oriental rug, his eyes fixed.  His wand was longer, darker, and Harry felt a cold thrill of terror rush up his spine at the sight of it that Lucius’s wand hadn’t inspired.

“I apologize, my lord.  I would never act without permission–”

“You were just about to,” now Voldemort sounded bored.  “Lucius, I have no need of your services at the moment.  Don’t you have a wedding to plan?”

Lucius bowed low, recognizing the dismissal as it was.  “I do, my Lord, thank you, my Lord.”

A wedding.  Well, that answered Harry’s questions about what event the Malfoys were planning.  But between who?  Questions swirled around his head as curiosity replaced fear, but he didn’t think Voldemort would be willing to answer them.  He wanted to start snooping around Malfoy manor.  He thought out of all of them maybe Narcissa would be willing to answer some of his questions.

Voldemort had been watching Lucius go, when he turned back to Harry there was something calculated in his eyes.  

“Harry.  I’m glad you’re back.”  He placed a hand on Harry’s neck and dragged him into the library before Harry could protest.  Inside the doors was one of the last people Harry hoped to see: Bellatrix Lestrange, standing on one side of the library’s great table wearing an effusively happy expression.  “Bellatrix.  You’re dismissed.”

He watched her expression immediately fall from the heights of ecstasy to devastation.  Her huge dark eyes welled up with tears that she tried to hide by bowing low before her lord.  She passed by the two of them with her high heels clicking on the floor and her lip sucked into a pout.  Voldemort paid her no mind, and steered Harry into a seat at the table.

The last time he had sat here with the dark lord he’d been forced to choke down a dinner, while Voldemort derided his parents.  At another point, in a vision, he’d seen the old Muggle studies professor dangling like a deranged chandelier over the dark lord and his death eaters. 

Voldemort folded his hands together in front of him on the table, and asked.  “Did you find your bath comfortable, Harry?”  His good mood was almost infectious for Harry, who could feel it through their connection, overlaying his anxiety.  “I hope the clothes you’ve been provided are to your liking.”  Obviously, he had no wish to put Harry out of his misery.

Harry nodded tersely.  He wanted to say something to the effect of, it’d be more to my liking to put a knife in your gut, but he held his tongue.

“Please, allow me to summon dinner.  I would have woken you to eat with me earlier, but the healer recommended we give you your sleep.”  With a smile, he waved his wand over the table and to Harry’s dismay a full table spread appeared before them.  His customary soup, a loaf of steaming bread, cheese, grapes, thinly sliced ham, nuts, and even a dark red wine appeared in the space between the two men.  Voldemort went for his wine first, taking a drink with a buoyant smile before he said, smugly.  “Bellatrix was just assisting me with an important project.”

“What project?”  Harry asked suspiciously, picking up a loaf of bread.

“You may ask our friend.”  Voldemort said and picked up a slice of ham from the center table.  The bite of meat he took was cut by the sharp teeth at the edge of his mouth, which were visible when he smiled.  He was so distracted watching Voldemort, he didn’t immediately register the weight of something moving on his crotch.

“Wha–” He went to spring up, but the weight of Nagini on his lap was too heavy.  The great snake rose between his legs, following her pink tongue which was scenting the air by Harry's chest.  When her mouth opened slightly, he could see her sharp fangs peeking out.  He squirmed as her great thick body moved up his leg and chest, in that strange, convulsive way of moving that snakes had.  Her diamond shaped head twisted around his neck until she was wrapped around the back of his neck.

“Hello, boy.”   Nagini’s hiss had a lazy quality to it, as though she was drunk or drowsy.  She was heavy on his neck, but not uncomfortable, like a tight hug.  Voldemort’s last words caught up with him, you may ask our friend.   So he had permission to ask questions, but at the cost of speaking parseltongue.  He chanced a look over to Voldemort, who was watching him with clear eyed calculation and vague amusement. Still, it was no secret to anyone that Harry could speak parseltongue.  

Always filled with doubt it wouldn’t work before he tried, Harry looked at the great serpent, and tried to remember how it felt the first time he’d spoken to an anaconda at the zoo.  “ Nagini, what are you working on?”  It sounded like English to his ears, but his lips formed a hiss.

“You do speak,” her hiss was high with delight and her round black eyes fixed on him as she raised her head.  “ So rare to meet a wizard who can.  Why didn’t you say hello to me before?”

“The last time we met you tried to kill me,” Harry reminded her.

“Pah,” said the snake.  “That was before.  We can be friends now.”

“What were you working on before I got here?”  He asked again, and she tightened around him.  He couldn’t reach out and grab any food with her wrapped so tightly around his neck, let alone swallow.  Voldemort had no such problem, he was chewing on more meat.

“We were doing spells.”   This was a disappointing answer after waiting so long for the snake to put it into words.  The tone of her hiss was nonchalant.  Harry had a feeling Nagini wasn’t interested in the magic of wizards.  “On my dear Master.”

Harry looked over at Voldemort, who was once again grinning.  He had to admit he didn’t understand.  Had Bellatrix Lestrange been casting spells on Lord Voldemort?  For what purpose, and why did he seem so pleased by the results?  He looked back at Nagini, a friendlier face.

“ What spells?”

“Wrong question,” Voldemort interrupted slyly.  “How strange to hear Parseltongue come out of another wizard’s mouth.  I would feel almost jealous if I didn’t know I had given it to you myself.  How young were you when you first talked to snakes, Harry?”

The first answer that came to mind was ten, almost eleven years old, at the zoo, talking to a python that had been born in captivity, but if he thought hard enough on it–and he’d often avoided doing just that– there were garden snakes that had whispered bits of opinion to him for years before that. Petunia had not liked animals of any kind, and the perfectly groomed lawn had disturbed all little creatures, who could sense that they were not welcome, so those chance encounters had never lasted long.  Just long enough to hear the occasional word, and wonder if he was going mad.

“I see,” Voldemort said.  “Your aunt never appreciated you showing any magical capabilities at all, then?”

Harry startled, realized he’d been read, and then scowled.  He wished he’d gotten the hang of occlumency very desperately.  But if Voldemort was going to look inside his head every time he asked him a question, he might as well just not answer at all.

“No,” Voldemort said, colder this time.  “Answer me, Harry.  What did your aunt think of your magical abilities?”

“She hated them.” He tried to change the subject.  “What project are you working on?”

“I told you not to ask me,” Voldemort was better at playing this game than he was.  “Why do you care what happens to muggles when they’ve treated you so poorly your whole life?”

The question cut him, but at least he knew the answer.  “They’re just people.  They’re not all like my aunt and uncle.  Some of them are good.”  He felt the truth of this resonate in his bones and he was not ashamed at all to say it.  “Why do you hate them so much?”

This question startled Voldemort as much as it did Harry, who had not honestly intended to ask such an instigating question.  His eyes hardened.  “I hate them because of what they’ve done to the world.  The pollution and noise and rubbish they make.  I hate their mediocrity, their stupidity, and their filthy blood.”

“Like your father’s?”  That was too far.  He knew it as soon as he said it.

Voldemort was on his feet.  His face was an impenetrable mask but his eyes were on fire, and Harry’s scar was searing.  The first spell didn’t hit him, but fell on Nagini, removed her from him and sent her flying bonelessly across the room.  The cruciatus curse hit him, and made him cry out, and then scream.  He screamed pitifully, contorted, and couldn’t stay sitting on the chair, he fell to the side, landing on his elbow.

 Then Voldemort retracted it and came closer, came to stand behind him, and Harry knew it wasn’t over.  He didn’t bother to bind his arms or stupify him.  He pulled Harry up by the tie of his shirt to hang limply in the air and then he slapped him, hard.  Harry’s head snapped to the side from the force of the blow.  His ears rang.  Then Voldemort slapped him again.  And again.  Each time he let Harry recover from the blow, let his eyes refocus back on him before hitting him again.  The ease at which he did it humiliated and scared Harry, badly.

“Never say that again.”  His voice was quite calm.  “Never.  Or the punishment will be quite severe.  Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Harry said.  His eyes were burning from pain, but he wouldn’t let any tears fall.

“Yes…?”

He lowered his eyes.  He hated himself.  “Yes, master.”

“Good.”  He dropped Harry back on his seat.  Harry caught himself from falling forward on shaking hands, and tried to catch his breath.  Voldemort walked serenely back to where he’d been sitting with his bare feet gliding evenly on the floor.  Harry reached up and touched a burning cheek, unable to shake the fear he felt.  Voldemort met his eyes, but his expression was impossible to read.  “I won’t take any disrespect from you, Harry.  I can make your life here very unpleasant, and I can take even more from the people you love...”

All of his good humor had been washed clean, that was apparent.  His eyes were cold and the tapping of his fingers on the table held a hint of impatience.  Harry kept his eyes to the table in front of him, focusing on evening out the ragged breathing and fine control he had over his facial expression.  It felt like he was being seen straight through whenever he was in Voldemort’s presence, all his insecurities and shame and fears, and he hated it, and hated himself for being so vulnerable to it.

Voldemort held up his wand, the Elder wand, and waved it carelessly through the air.  The wineglass on the table shattered with a harsh noise, and Harry flinched.  The shards landed in some of the food, but with another flip of his wand, they retreated back through the air and reformed a perfect and empty wine glass.  He did it again, to the same effect, and Harry flinched just as badly.

He didn’t know if he was expected to keep eating while Voldemort practiced such casual violence on the tableware or if he had maybe been summoned to witness this.  In truth, his stomach was starting to twinge with hunger.  Two days had passed since his last meal of thin soup at this very same dining table, and he was feeling less sick than he had before.  Voldeort waved his wand and the glass shattered again.  Harry did not move, and his uncertainty made a lump in his throat.  

Then the room swarmed and bent, and he was looking down the table, at a spread of rich and varied food, and a dark haired, pale boy sitting stiff and fearful.  He lifted up a pale hand and a long, elegant black wand, and thought the word to break the wineglass in his head, Confringo.   The glass shattered but this time the boy did not flinch.

Then Harry was back in his own head, looking across the table at Voldemort, with the nausea feeling of whiplash.  He looked at the glass which had been shattered dramatically into many pieces, which had flown across the room.  He looked over at Voldemort, queasy and questioning.

Voldemort sighed.  Then, very calmly, he reformed the glass, and with another wave of his wand, made it expand.  It was twice the size it had started out as, and pushed the platter of fruit next to it away.  He retracted the glass with another wave.  Harry envied his casual use of magic, the same way he’d always envied the older Weasley boy’s their casual and natural involvement of magic in the world around them.  Harry was just wondering if he’d ever have the chance to practice magic again himself, when the world once again contracted around him.

He was staring down a wine glass.  A glimmer of hope and anticipation unfurling in his chest.  Focus and precision of mind were required to cast spells silently but he had that in spades.  It was second nature to cast that rather simple, predictable and studiable spell, engorgio.  The wine glass swelled, but only as large as it had the first time the spell had been cast, and Voldemort heaved a sigh of disappointment.

Harry snapped back into his own head with a quiet gasp.  His scar was aching, not sharply, but insistently.  He knew it was because the bond between him and the man sitting at the head of the table was being used, exploited, played with.  Voldemort was inviting him inside his own head.  He rubbed at his forehead.

Voldemort stood up from his seat and came down the side of the table with his eyes fixed on his young horcrux.  Harry stiffened but couldn’t look away as he came.  It was the transfixation of a prey watching a predator and had all the same tension and fear.  Voldemort extended a hand down to the boy, but rested his slender, long fingers on the side of Harry’s table instead of on his body, as Harry had originally feared.  He pointed his wand at the wine glass.

It expanded.  And then some more, infectious with the growing and surging energy, it pushed aside a bowl of nuts and another wineglass and made it spill red wine down onto the wooden table, and kept going beside, until it was at least two and a half times as large as it had been before.

Harry had a sinking feeling he knew what was going on.

Then Voldemort’s hand was on Harry’s shoulder and was squeezing down tightly.  Even through Harry’s shirt and overcoat the pressure from his hand was immense and threatening, tight enough to be painful.  No possible way to get away from it or avoid it.  This time when Voldemort cast a spell on the wineglass, it didn’t merely double in size, but expanded more than that, tripling, even quadrupled in size, until all the bowl and plates around it were pushed firmly away, some even off the table.

He felt Voldemort’s triumph like it was his own, through his scar and through the painful tightening of his hand on Harry’s shoulder.  Voldemort withdrew, lifting his hand and walking back to his seat at the high table with a contented smile on his face.

For his part, Harry felt sick.  As Agnese had suggested, the passing of skills and abilities had not been entirely one-sided.  Just as he’d gained the ability to speak to snakes, it seemed Harry acted as a natural amplifier for Voldemort’s magic.  Yet another reason why Dumbledore had no doubt longed to keep Harry far away and preferably dead rather than in the hands of the dark lord.

“Very good, Harry.  Now finish eating your meal, and then off to bed with you.”  The Dark Lord indicated he was supposed to eat by pointing his wand at the meal in front of the boy.  Harry’s appetite had been thoroughly extinguished and he only wished he could go to sleep again so that this day would be over.

Voldemort watched as he picked at what was in front of it.

“Keep eating,” his cool voice had a growl to it.  “Until I say you’re finished.”

Harry put the bread he’d been picking at down, feeling a surge of indignation that Voldemort would even make something like this torture, but as his eyes flared up with defiance, his captor’s eyes sharpened.  It was too soon from the last cruciatus curse for Harry to keep it up.  He lowered his eyes and picked up the bread.  As he ate, Voldemort’s wand drew casual cursing patterns in the air, and the wine glass grew and shrank and grew and shrank.  Harry finished the bread and then slowly made his way through eating the soup and chicken.  His stomach was already uncomfortably full even before he got to the pear, salad and pudding.

Feeling like he couldn’t stand another bite before he threw it all back up, Voldemort put down his wand with a bored expression and said, “Alright.  That’s enough.”

Hating everything but relieved to be done, Harry stood.  “I don’t have to stay here, do I?”

Voldemort’s eyes were glinting, but otherwise his emotions were locked out of Harry’s reach.  “Don’t enjoy my company, Harry?  You’ll stay until I tell you you can leave.”  He pointed at the sofa and Harry’s fist clenched.  Even though he also hated his old cell, sleeping in the presence of someone he genuinely despised and who sought to humiliate and punish him at every available opportunity was another level of discomfort.  Voldemort added, “And don’t ask stupid questions.”

Harry flung himself onto the sofa with force, casting himself out of the sharp and penetrative gaze of his parent’s murderer and into the warmth of the fire.  His stomach was bulgingly full and made it difficult for him to lay down in any position, as it had begun to cramp. Worse, sitting painfully in his stomach was the shame that he’d once again made himself useful to the dark lord. 

Sick with that knowledge, he turned over and over on the couch, drifting off for moments before startling himself by thinking that Voldemort was hovering just above him, which he wasn't, of course.  When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed he was on the run in the forest, without Ron or Hermoine by his side, moving restlessly through the woods and glancing fearfully over his back.  Rising through the trees was a swarm of wizards on broomsticks, like a flock of birds in formation, they twisted and turned as one black mass.  He tried to hide but the leaves on the trees were dying and leaving holes in the canopy as they fell all around him.  He heard the rattle of dry flesh sucking in air and knew it was dementors hunting him, not wizards.  Spotting him through the trees, they dived all together towards him.

Then he was sitting in a comfortable chair, looking over at Albus Dumbledore’s warm and lined face.  The old headmaster was smiling and stroking a hand over Fawk’s glimmering red feathers.  He looked down at his feet, in his school robes and saw his feet did not touch the floor, and he was dwarfed by the chair he was sitting in.  When he looked back up, Dumbledore was no longer smiling.

“I gave you a job to do.”  His voice was slow and clear.  Everything in his office was exactly the way Harry remembered it, from the way the light fell over the scattered papers to the chiming of the clocks and the gentle murmurs of portraits conversing.  And the coldness in Dumbledore’s voice and the tension that sat between them thick and heavy with the headmaster’s disappointment in him, that was exactly like he remembered it, too.  Every second that passed hung heavy in the air and fear crept over him as he sat there caught in Dumbledore’s icy and all-knowing eyes.

“You were supposed to kill yourself.”

Harry woke up with a gasp.  His head was pounding and fear was clogging up the back of his throat, so that his lungs didn’t fill up with air.  When his breathing finally evened out, he looked behind him and saw that Voldemort was watching him.